No one ever said that single-serving coffee machines and the coffee cups and brewing pods you need to operate them were cheaper than buying and brewing your own coffee at home, but they're certainly more convenient. Each of us has to decide how much we're willing to pay for convenience, but the price of that convenience can be as high as $51/lb, according to a new study that compared the costs of buying by the pound and brewing your own versus single-serving makers.

We all know it's cheaper to make coffee at home rather than buy it at Starbucks, but weblog…
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For example, the Nespresso Arpeggio costs $5.70 for 10 espresso capsules, while the Folgers Black Silk blend for a K-Cup brewed-coffee machine is $10.69 for 12 pods. But that Nespresso capsule contains 5 grams of coffee, so it costs about $51 a pound. And the Folgers, with 8 grams per capsule, works out to more than $50 a pound.

That's even more expensive than all but the priciest coffees sold by artisanal roasters, the stuff of coffee snobs.

The article then goes on to point out that even high-end fancy coffees at your local coffee shop or grocery store are well south of $20/lb, so the cost of convenience is pretty steep indeed. There are important caveats not mentioned in the NYT piece though—for one, some single-serving machines allow you to fill reusable cups with your own coffee, and if you only drink a cup or two per day, the cost per pound per day may even out as opposed to how much coffee you may waste brewing a whole pot and then pouring the coffee you don't drink down the drain. Ultimately, their study is more of an eye-opening way to make an educated decision for yourself than a condemnation of the single-serving industry.

The Times points to generational differences in perception as the root of the issue, with younger people thinking in terms of how much a cup of coffee costs where older folks thought about their coffee costs in terms of pounds. What do you think? Much ado about nothing, or even more reason why you'd never buy one of those machines anyway? Let's hear it in the comments below.